Our lips are fluid, quick to drink
new liquid lies. We seem to think
some presence due to humbled ones,
some missive, set with drying ink.
Our fasts are full, or so we’ve spun
out in our vaults of loaded guns
a legend told in hallowed halls,
the legends of old battles won.
A foolish skin won’t hide our fall
when all within us mutes His call,
when all within is darkened tomb
and all without is splash-white wall.
O saints who long to make Him room,
awake, lay bare your bones, exhume:
His life will wrap your frame in red,
His life will cap your crown with blooms.
Begin in darkness, lay your head
upon the breast of broken Bread,
upon the breast that wept and bled
and drink the Wine that raised the dead.
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Isaiah 58:1-3
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’